Chapter 9: The Beginning of the End
In this chapter:
· Prisoners
· Recognition
· Batter-up!
· Time for a holiday
As it turned out, Aldo had lied to Elsie on the first day she had met the Basterds. They did answer to someone; in fact, she soon learned that the Basterds were commanded by the Office of Strategic Services, otherwise known as the OSS, and were quite an important group to the American war effort.
Despite the discovery of this new information, she really didn't feel any different about them or their cause. After nearly four months of killing, scalping and travelling together, the Basterds had become a close group of not only soldiers, but also friends. Although they were originally both outsiders in their own ways, Elsie and Hugo were a part of this faction, and it wouldn't have been the same without them. The team mentality made them all the more successful in their mutual goal: to kill any and all Nazis they came across.
Aldo now sat scouring a map he had recovered from the last group of Nazis they had eliminated. It was a chart of the surrounding territory and was apparently of some significance to the German soldiers in the area; however, it gave no hints as to where these other patrols might be posted.
While their lieutenant scanned the piece of paper, the Basterds busied themselves with their usual customary practices; scalping, looting and irrelevant conversation. Elsie, now used to scalping and one of the fastest in the group at doing it, sat watching the others as they carried out their work, with a canteen of water in her hand. As she took a drink, Hirschberg straightened up from the body of the man, holding his topmost layer of hair.
"Hey Else, what'll you give me if I get this scalp to land on top of your head?" he asked, grinning at the idea.
"A concussion," she deadpanned. The surrounding men laughed and Hirschberg tossed the scalp aside.
Just as she put away the canteen, Elsie spotted Hugo making his way down the center of the gully, leading the last three soldiers that they had left alive. Wilhelm walked behind them with his gun in hand just in case they decided to try their luck at escape. As one man stopped to gaze in shock at his dead and scalped comrades, Wilhelm kicked him in the ass to get him moving again. Hugo and Elsie exchanged smiles as he made his way past her towards Lt. Raine.
Aldo had chosen to situate himself directly beside a large brick bridge and the underpass that opened below it. The yawning entranceway was dark, giving no indication of what lay both inside and beyond it; but the Basterds knew. One of their own, in fact. After all the Basterds had positioned themselves for the best view of their lieutenant, most settling for the top of the rise on either side of the bridge, Aldo decided that it was time to speak to one of the survivors.
"Hirschberg, send that kraut sergeant over, will ya," he ordered.
Hirschberg seemed quite happy to have been left in charge of the prisoners, kicking out at the oldest looking man of the group. The man looked at him with distaste, but proceeded over to Aldo nonetheless.
Sitting atop the bridge, above the goings-on below, Elsie glanced around to see were the other Bastards had chosen to position themselves, her legs dangling over the side. Hugo was standing on her left a few feet away, while Wilhelm was below her to Aldo's left, in case an interpreter was needed. Utivich was also on the ground below, but stood to Aldo's right, a little way behind Hirschberg and the prisoners. The others were spread out not too far from where Utivich stood, all waiting to see how things would pan out.
"Sergeant Werner Rachtman," the German told Aldo, giving a brief salute, respectful of the lieutenant's rank.
"Lieutenant Aldo Raine," he introduced briefly, caring little for proper introductions, "Ya speak Anglish, Werner? 'Cos if ya don't, we gotta couple of people here who can translate."
He looked over at Wilhelm, "Corporal Wilhelm Wicki, Austrian-Jew who got the fuck out of Germany while the gettin' was good," he told Werner. He turned his head and looked up towards Elsie, who smiled down.
"That pretty little gurl up there you mighta heard of."
The sergeant glanced up, then looked back at Aldo, "Henker. Yes, I know who she is. Most of us are now referring to her as 'Da Uden-Hure'."
The Jew-whore. How charming.
Elsie raised her eyebrows and gave a little sarcastic shrug as if to say, 'Eh, what are you gonna do?'
"Another one up there you might be familiar with: Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz," Aldo continued, sounding proud to have this particular recruit, "Heard of him?"
Werner looked over at Hugo, eyeing his familiar uniform, and his face twisted in disgust at the man's betrayal of his own country. He replied to Aldo, "Everyone in the German army has heard of Hugo Stiglitz."
He practically spat the name out, as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. The Basterds laughed and 'whooped' in support of their fellow soldier and the murders he was famous for. Elsie smirked at Hugo as he made a cocky gesture at Sergeant Rachtman with his thumb and forefinger. She turned her attention back to Aldo and the prisoner below, but things didn't seem to be getting anywhere fast.
"Can I assume, then, that you know who I am?" Aldo asked.
"You're Aldo the Apache."
Further whooping and clapping ensued from the surrounding Basterds.
"You heard of the Basterds, then I presume that you know we ain't in the prisoner takin' business. We're in the killin' Nazi business. An' cousin; business is a boomin'."
"Oh yeah," the Basterds agreed, laughing.
"Now, I have some idea of a Nazi patrol that's fucking around somewhere in that orchard up ahead," Aldo began, referencing a spot on the map, "So if you ever wanna eat a sauerkraut sand'ich again, I suggest you to take your finger and point out on this here map for me where exactly it is that they're hiding."
"You can't really expect me to divulge information that would put German lives at risk," the sergeant replied.
Aldo sighed and took off his hat. All of the Basterds were dressed in their usual civilian clothes – with the exception of Hugo – but now with coats and scarves due to the ever-cooling weather. The warm summer had slid into a less than warm autumn, and it seemed that autumn was hastening into winter much faster than usual. Leaves fell from the trees surrounding them, making the bloodied scenery a little more picturesque.
Elsie had put together a warm ensemble that she now considered her signature outfit as a Basterd. It consisted of flat-bottomed leather boots that reached just below her knees, dark brown pants (which seemed a Basterd staple), an off-white woolen shirt, a brown woolen trench coat, an olive-green neck scarf, and a dark brown newsboy hat, not unlike Aldo's. Her long, red hair flowed out from beneath it, immediately giving her away as the lone female member of the group.
"Now, you see, that's exactly what I expect you to do," Aldo told the sergeant.
"I respectfully refuse," he answered, touching his hand to his heart.
A hollow 'WHACK' echoed out of the bridge's dark underpass.
Elsie's heart skipped a beat. No matter how many times she'd seen Donny in action, she still reacted the same way every single time.
"Hear that?" Aldo asked.
Rachtman nodded.
"That's Sergeant Donny Donowitz. Or as you'd probably know him better as: 'The Bear Jew'. Now, if you heard of Aldo the Apache, you've gotta have heard of The Bear Jew."
"I've heard of him."
"What have you heard?" Aldo inquired.
"He beats German soldiers with a club."
"He bashes their brains in with a baseball bat, is what he does. So, Werner, I'm gonna ask you one last time and if you still 'respectfully refuse', I'm gonna call out Sergeant Donowitz and he's gonna take that club of his and beat your ass to death with it. Now take your wiener-schnitzel lickin' finger and point out on this here map what I wanna know."
Although they needed to know where the next lot of Germans were stationed, the Basterds were praying to God that the Nazi would refuse once again. Much to their delight, he did not disappoint.
"Fuck you," he told Aldo, before glancing around at the surrounding soldiers, "and your Jew dogs!"
"Whoa-ho-ho," the Basterds jeered, clapping at his words.
Aldo grinned.
"Actually, we're real tickled to here ya say that, 'cos, quite frankly, watching Donny beat Nazis to death is the closest we ever get to going to the movies."
Folding away the map, Aldo stood up. "Hey Donny!" he called down the tunnel next to them.
"Yeah?" a heavy Boston accent replied.
"We got us a German here who wants to die for his country. Oblige him."
The hollow whacking ensued once more from the underpass. Excited as she was to see Donny play whack-a-Nazi again, Elsie sat tight, knowing that he liked to drag out his entrance to build both suspense in his audience, and fear in his victims. Sergeant Rachtman sat in front of the tunnel entrance, staring bravely into the face of his approaching death. Aldo took out a sandwich from his rations and began eating while he waited.
Donny finally sauntered out from under the bridge, dressed in brown trousers, suspenders and a white wife-beater that clung perfectly to his well-muscled chest, his bat resting on his shoulder. The Basterds cheered him on, Aldo clapping as he held his sandwich in his mouth. Donny turned to look up at the bridge to where Elsie sat, giving her a look that said, 'This is all for you, baby'. Then he turned back to face the Nazi sergeant, fury burning in his eyes. He spotted a medal hanging from the man's breast-pocket.
"Ya get that for killing Jews?" he asked, jabbing it with his bat.
"Bravery," Rachtman told him.
Donny made a face to say he didn't believe him. He touched his bat to the man's head, a caress of death, and then, swung it back. When it came down and made contact the Nazis head, Elsie thought that the 'CRACK!' of wood meeting skull could've been heard a few miles away, it was so loud. She gave an involuntary cringe before she commenced cheering with the other Basterds.
Donny never failed to give them a good show.
After delivering a few more heavy blows to the body of the convulsing German sergeant, he turned to the spectators.
"Johnny fucking Williams hits it out of the ballpark! Fenway Park on its feet for Johnny! Fuckin-ballgame! He went yardo on that one, onto fuckin' Lansdowne Street!"
Elsie nearly lost her balance on the edge of the bridge, she was laughing so hard at Donny's commentary. Donny, adrenaline still pumping, looked for the next victim and spotted the two remaining prisoners. He pointed his bloodied bat towards one of them.
"You!"
The man got up, looking as though he would be more than willing to give them any information they wanted now, but he never got the chance. For no apparent reason, Hirschberg shot him in the back, killing the man instantly. And this made Elsie laugh even harder. Hirschberg glanced up at her with a grin.
"Hirschberg, send that other kraut over," Aldo told him, adding for good measure, "Alive!"
The remaining prisoner's eyes widened as Donny came towards him, jabbing him in the back with his baseball bat.
"On your feet, batter-up! You're on deck! Two hits: I hit you, you hit the ground."
The laughter began to die down a bit as the Basterds waited to see what this prisoner would do. It was very rare for the second prisoner to refuse them what they wanted after seeing Donny at work, and this particular man looked like he would even have done a little dance for them, had they asked.
"Anglish?" Aldo asked, as the prisoner was shoved forcefully down in front of him by Donny.
The man shook his head nervously.
"Wicki," Aldo called, since he was the closest of the three possible interpreters.
Wilhelm jumped down from the small hillock he had been watching from and crouched down beside his lieutenant.
"Do you wanna live?" Aldo asked the shaken prisoner. Wilhelm translated it to the man, who quickly replied, "Ja, ja!"
His eyes darted about to the people around him, trembling like a scared child. He looked up at Elsie, trying to appeal to the more maternal side of a woman. Clearly he didn't know Elsie. She stared down at him without emotion.
"Point out on this map, the German position," Aldo ordered.
The second after Wilhelm had translated, the private's arm shot out like a rocket, tapping a spot on the map Aldo had taken out once more. The Basterds chuckled at the German's cowardice.
"How many?"
He gave his answer to Wilhelm, who looked back at the lieutenant, "Round about twelve."
"What kind of artillery?"
The prisoner started to shake a little more as he paused to recall, thinking, perhaps, that any hiatus in his flow of information would result in a similar fate as the others. He replied very quickly in German, motioning once again to a few areas on the map.
"They have a machine gun dug in here, facing north," Wilhelm told Aldo.
"A'right, then, that's what I like to see. Some goddamn genuine co-operation."
Aldo got to his feet and folded the map away, gesturing for the prisoner to also stand. He obeyed without hesitation.
"Now when you tell 'em what happened here, you can't tell 'em that you told us what you told us. They'll shoot ya. But they're gonna wanna know why you so special, we let you live. So you can tell 'em that we let ya live, so you could spread the word through the ranks, of what's gonna happen to every Nazi we find."
Aldo then looked to Wilhelm, who nodded in understanding. It was time for the final act.
Aldo looked thoughtfully at the young prisoner. "Now, say we let ya go, and say ya survive the war, what're ya gonna do when you get home?"
Wilhelm listened to the man's answer and told the lieutenant, "He's gonna hug his mother."
"Well, ain't that nice," Aldo smiled, "What's he gonna do with that uniform?"
"He says he's gonna burn it," Wilhelm explained.
"Yeah, that's what we thought. We don't like that. See, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way you can spot 'em just like that."
He clicked his fingers to show just how quickly they could spot them.
"So when you take that uniform off, ain't nobody gonna know that you was a Nazi. And that don't sit well with us."
Aldo took out his large Bowie knife.
"So I'm gonna give ya a little something ya can't take off."
The prisoner's eyes widened.
While Aldo made his mark on the screaming German soldier, Elsie was trying to figure out how she was going to get down without slipping. The fallen leaves that surrounded her didn't make this process any easier. Looking around herself for some kind of foothold, she locked eyes with Donny, who stood below, watching her attempts.
He put down his bat and held out his arms, motioning for her to jump down.
"Oh, uh-uh," she told him, not liking that idea at all.
"I'll catch ya," he promised reassuringly, making the gesture for her to jump once more.
She leaned forward a little to judge the distance from where she sat, to the ground below. If she fell, she wouldn't necessarily die; but she wouldn't be walking for a long time, if ever again. She put her hand over her eyes and dragged it down over her face, taking a deep breath.
"Just let me throw my stuff down first," she called down to him.
She tossed down her gun and satchel, both of which he purposely dropped. She looked at him, horrified.
"What? I'm joking," he laughed. "Now, come on, or I'll get Hirschberg up there to give you a little push."
Taking another deep breath, she slid herself right to the edge, closed her eyes and pushed off, falling towards the ground below...but not making contact with it. Instead, she felt arms grab her and gently lower her to the ground. Brushing off the seat of her pants, Elsie glanced around and saw Hugo gazing at her. She picked up her things and was about to make her way over to him, when Donny stopped her.
"No 'thank-you'?"
She turned to him with her head slightly to the side, a raised eyebrow and a look of mild irritation, but she could hardly resist his lopsided smile.
"Thank-you Donny," she said, melodramatically, "for catching me in your big, strong arms. There's no way that a frail little girl like me could ever have gotten down from there by myself. How lucky I was to have you there."
He shook his head at her, still smiling.
Just as she was about to turn back around and go to Hugo, she saw that he was already walking towards her. While Donny went to pick his bat up off the ground, Aldo called everyone over.
"A'right, since we all been working so hard lately, seems command thinks we're owed a bit of a break. Looks like we'll be spending the next week in Paris."
The Basterds stared at their leader in surprise. This they had not been expecting.
"Now if ya'll'd stop looking at me like that, I'd much appreciate it. We got us some work to do."
He tapped the map.
Nobody seemed to care that they were about to take out a machine gun-powered Nazi squadron.
It was time for a holiday.